The Temporality of the Official Discourse of the Russian government (2012-2022): grammatical vs semantic dimension

Nikolaev Il'ya Viktorovich Senior Lecturer; Department of Foreign History and International Relations; Southern Federal University 344082, Russia, Rostov region, Rostov-On-Don, Pushkinskaya str., 140, office 213 nikolaev_polit@mail.ru Other publications by this author

introduction

The historical past is an element of the construction of political ideology. The accentuation of individual events of a great and traumatic nature, the glorification of figures of the past, or, conversely, the demonstrative denial of such, do not cease to be relevant tools of political struggle. The Russian case is no exception. According to K. V. Kiselyov, in comparison with world practice, in which the categories of temporality are in relative balance, there is a preponderance of the discourse of the past in the Russian political process ^{[1, p. 175]}. Given the inherently contradictory content of the historical events of the previous century, the issue of positioning political forces in the system of "time coordinates" turns out to be crucial for finding one's own electorate. Among other political actors, the State and public authorities play a special role in the process of constructing ideas about the past. The official political discourse becomes a source of "legitimate language" ^[2] about history. The state's position cannot avoid ideological labeling, and even more so the need to engage in a discussion about the historical past. The state narrative of the past is a legitimizing myth that includes the cosmology of the political elite, justifications for domestic and foreign policy claims and forms of activity. History is becoming a communicative code for the self-presentation of the state in modern times. "The past consists of a community of certain acts, and they, through their embodiment in the present act, establish the conditions that the act must meet" ^{[3, p. 28]}.

Political discourse, being a continuation of politics as a special type of public relations, is ideologized, permeated with meanings and intentions. The orientation and mobilization functions of politics presuppose the presence in the language of political communication of a focused image construction not only of the past, but also of the future. This temporal characteristic is more amorphous: when talking about the past, a politician turns to facts and rethinks them; when turning to the future, he puts himself at risk of unfulfilled promises. We assumed that the configuration of references to the past and the future, as well as their semantic content, are politically motivated and are embedded not so much in the so-called "historical politics", but in a broader "temporal politics". According to the hypothesis, our goal was to identify the temporal characteristics of the official political discourse of the Russian government in 2012-2022.

Methodology. The research is based on the belief that modern science needs an interdisciplinary synthesis of approaches to the analysis of the phenomenon of temporality in various spheres of social existence. The linguistic and semiotic practice of studying time in language has developed in a number of directions, in accordance with the typology of D. A. Sinkevich ^{[4, p. 148]}: grammatical, focusing on the fixation of absolute and relative tense in verbal forms; synsemantic, considering the complementarity of temporal syntaxes and temporal lexemes; functional-grammatical, communicative and cognitive. The latter approach is of great interest to the researcher of political discourse. He assumes that language is both a translator of the linguistic time picture and its constructor. At the same time, according to E. V. Petrukhina, several cognitive models of time can simultaneously exist in language, "determined both by the cultural and cognitive experience of an ethnic group and by the properties of the language itself functioning in speech" ^[5]. The latter statement suggests the existence of both competitive relations between different models and the phenomenon of dominance of one model over others.

In historical and socio-political sciences, research on the phenomenon of time is organically interwoven into the field of memory studies, which aims to identify the specifics of the forms and patterns of ideas about the past. T. van Dijk identifies a specific cognitive structure "memor" responsible for storing, interpreting and using information about the past ^{[6, pp. 197-199]}. Long-term memory, implemented in mental structures and event models, determines the characteristics of short-term memory, defining its boundaries and specifics of use. Semantic (social) long-term memory "is formed on the basis of generally accepted sociocultural beliefs and opinions, as well as elements of social knowledge, the truth of which is not in doubt" ^{[7, p. 198]}, which determines the stereotypical representations and operations with the past. In turn, Assman asserts that "the synthesis of time and identity occurs through memory" ^{[8, p. 109]}, while any actualization of the past becomes a new "act of semiotization and symbolization" ^{[9, p. 87]}, requiring a rethinking of information stored in social memory. Assman continues this theoretical tradition and he applies it to the socio-political sphere, introducing the concept of a "temporary cultural regime" ^[10], which determines, among other things, which time period in the social memory of society and the political elite is dominant in the processes of constructing the ideological content of public relations. Thus, despite the fact that cognitive structures are associated with objective "linear time, divided by a "point of presence" into the past, the future and the present connecting them into a single stream" ^{[11, p. 52]}, in socio-political processes there is and is influenced by a selective and constructed representation of both the passage of time and and about his hypostases – past, present and future.

Synthesizing an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenon of temporality in the discourse of official authorities, we note the advantages of the cognitive approach, which makes it possible to assume the presence of relatively stable patterns of representations and perceptions of the past and future, realized both in grammatical forms (specific verb forms, syntaxemes) and in special temporal vocabulary, requiring not so much formal linguistic analysis as semantic and symbolic. Temporal vocabulary becomes markers and references to the historical period from which, according to A. Assman, the present is projected. Speaking with verbal political symbols, vocabulary referring to different time periods is involved in the construction of a specific historical policy. Following A. I. Miller, we understand the latter as a purposeful or partially purposeful activity of the state, focused on constructing representations of large social groups or society as a whole about historical events, facts and personalities in the interests of the ruling elite ^{[12, p. 19]}. In this sense, historical politics is an element of "symbolic politics from above" ^{[13, p. 68]}, implying the active activity of political actors in positioning themselves in the public communicative space and broadcasting "temporarily official ideologies" ^{[14, p. 154]}. However, "a politicized story cannot be reduced unambiguously (only and precisely) to conscious falsification" ^{[15, p. 44]} due to the dependence of the content of the broadcast message not only on the volitional intentions of the communicant, but also on the cognitive-linguistic structures of understanding the objects of reality fixed in his mind ^{[16, p. 45]}, including those related to It belongs to the category of temporality, i.e. the connection with objective and subjective time and history.

Method. Based on the stated theoretical assumptions, in our study we attempt to characterize the temporality of the official political discourse of the Russian government by integrating three levels of analysis:

— grammatical level (quantitative analysis of the tense forms of verbs in the main sources of official political discourse);

— lexical level (quantitative analysis of symbolic words marking references to the past and future);

— semantic level (analysis of texts for conceptual reflection of the past and projection of the future).

A content analysis of verb forms and key verbal symbols of temporality will help answer the question of the dominance of prospective or retrospective temporality in the texts of official political discourse. Within the framework of the third level of research, an attempt is made to identify a conceptual model of the past and the future, constructed in the official political discourse of the Russian government in 2012-2022.

An empirical base. To achieve the stated goals, a selection of texts of the official political discourse was formed, including the texts of the key subject — translator of the official discourse, represented by the President of the Russian Federation for the period from May 2012 to February 2022. The lower chronological boundary is the inauguration of Vladimir Putin as President of the Russian Federation on May 7, 2012. The upper chronological boundary is due to the beginning of the Russian special military operations in Ukraine. After this event, we are convinced that historical and more broadly symbolic politics are changing dramatically, which requires a separate study. The empirical base includes official public speeches addressed to the government and society (messages from the President to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation); as well as official speeches addressed exclusively to society (New Year's speeches, congratulations on Victory Day and National Unity Day).

THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY

The grammatical level of the temporality of the official discourse of power

To characterize the grammatical level of temporality of the discourse of power, a quantitative analysis of the tense forms of verbs was carried out. Counting the words that act as predicates in the texts of the President's messages to the Federal Assembly has shown that when there is a general trend in the ratio of time forms, there are features in the logic of data distribution. So, in particular, one can note the dominance of the verbs of the present tense inherent in the official political discourse, which is observed throughout the analyzed period, except for 2021. The proportion of verbs in this tense ranges from 40 to 60% of the total number of this part of speech. We believe that this indicator is normative for the analyzed genre of texts. Going beyond the identified range requires clarification. Thus, the last message from the president within the chronological period, which was issued on April 21, 2021, contains reporting characteristics that focus on actions taken during the 2020 pandemic and related events in the economy and foreign policy. It is not surprising that in a difficult period for the authority of the government, the speechwriters preferred to mention the competitive advantages of the current political elite.

Figure 1. The ratio of tense forms of verbs in the texts of the President's messages to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation 2012-2021. (as a percentage of the total number of verbs)

The actualization of the verb forms of the past and future tense in the President's messages in 2012-2021 is very difficult to follow patterns. If there is a certain cyclicity in the popularity of past tense verbs, manifested in an increase in the frequency of use on the eve of the end of the presidential term, then there is no tendency in changing the number of future tense verbs. The past and future tenses of verbs accompany two key practices of political discourse: reflection on previously performed actions and events, as well as planning the future activities of the political elite. The unexpressed pattern of using two tenses of verbs indicates the absence of the established practice in the Russian political system of structuring speech, highlighting parts devoted to situation analysis and goal setting. This, in turn, characterizes the official political discourse as fixated on the present tense and the reproduction of the present. The status quo, fixed by the present tense of verb forms, is preferable to both a fragmentary past and an illusory future.

The lexical level of temporality of official political discourse

Quantitative directional content analysis was used to analyze the lexical level. The following words were identified as words marking an appeal to the past: "past", "last", "previous", "back" and their grammatical forms. Addressing the future is identified by such lexemes as "future", "nearest", "next", "forward" and their forms. Based on the results of the statistical calculation, the following intermediate results were identified.

Figure 2. Dynamics of the use of past and future marker words in the official discourse of the President of the Russian Federation in 2012-2021 (absolute values)

The idea of the past and the future as the nearest years to the date of the declaration of the text is dominant in the speeches of the President of the Russian Federation. References to the future are observed in the context of goal-setting for several years ahead. Strategic planning for the long term is practically non-existent. The latter is expressed in the construction of immeasurable abstract goals related to the general idea of Russia's place in international relations, as well as the general cultural or systemic changes necessary to create a strong, invincible, rich Russia of the future.

Figure 3. Dynamics of the use of marker words for the near and distant future in the official discourse of the President of the Russian Federation in 2012-2021. (absolute values)

"The fate of Russia, its historical perspective, depends on how many of us there will be (...), how many children will be born into Russian families in a year, five, ten years, what they will grow up to be, who they will become, what they will do for the development of the country..." ^[17].

"Russia faces breakthrough historical challenges, and everyone's contribution is significant in solving them. Together, we will definitely change our lives for the better" ^[18].

Figure 4. Dynamics of the use of marker words of the near and distant past in the official discourse of the President of the Russian Federation in 2012-2021. (absolute values)

In turn, the predominant mention of the past in the form of references to events that have already occurred or results achieved earlier primarily affects the history of recent years and is present in formulations of the following type: "last year", "in last year's message", "in the recent past", "several years ago", etc. At the operational level, it is used the past, enclosed in the framework of the 2000s - 2010s, while deeper historical layers (including the 1990s) are involved in the construction of political myths and other stable symbolic structures.

"A lot has been done in the first 12 years of the new century" ^[19].

In this regard, the period of Russian and world history before the 2000s appears in the texts of messages and congratulatory speeches statistically much less frequently than the operationalized and revised decades of the 21st century. There is a similar relationship between the distant and the near future — the latter dominates in quantitative terms, as it is understandable and predictable for the political elite. Long-term prospects and plans are practically absent and are replaced by an abstract idea of the future. Despite the relative parity between references to the future and the past in the texts of official documents, in general, the dominance of a promising temporal characteristic can be traced. However, the semantic weight of references to the past is significantly higher compared to the more numerous but amorphous references to the future. We will try to consider this hypothesis by analyzing the semantic level of the temporality of official discourse.

The semantic level of the temporality of official political discourse

The past (Pre-revolutionary history). In the context of research on historical memory and, in particular, the instrumental use of the past to legitimize power, it is essential for our analysis to distinguish between the Soviet and pre-revolutionary eras of Russian history. Characterizing the acts of appeal of the official authorities to the pre-revolutionary Russian history, we note their situationality and rarity. Thus, during the entire period under study, the discourse of the President's messages, which are the quintessence of official political discourse, refers to the history before 1917 only eight times. 2012 and 2018 were marked by references to the First World War; 2013 — the Zemstvo reform of Alexander II; 2014 — the baptism of Rus and the importance of Chersonesos and Crimea in this process; 2016 — the February and October revolutions of 1917; 2019 — "the time of the Ochakovskys and the conquest of Crimea" ^[20].

The solemn discourse, presented by congratulatory speeches in honor of the New Year, Victory Day, and National Unity Day, demonstrates the great intensity of actualization of pre-revolutionary history. There are practically no references to history in the texts of New Year's greetings, and the study of the past ends with the characteristics of the ending year. On the contrary, the discourse of congratulations on May 9 and November 4 is extremely historical. At the same time, it is natural that almost every speech of the president at the reception in honor of National Unity Day mentions the events of pre-revolutionary history. The narrative of the Troubles 400 years ago has been supplemented with elements that mythologize and "modernize" this historical event: "the weakness of the state has come to an end" ^[21], "the sacred right to live according to its charters and traditions" ^[22], "the people themselves rose up against the troubles and anarchy, overcame internal strife and external threat, he defended the dignity and independence of the country" ^[23], "saved the country from disintegration" ^[24]. Despite the organic connection of the two holidays with two historical eras, the President's speeches dedicated to Victory Day contain references to the pre-revolutionary past. So, in 2019, "the ancient Russian capitals of Kiev and Veliky Novgorod" were mentioned ^[25], in 2018 — two world wars, in 2014 — the founding of Sevastopol and the Crimean War, etc.

Appealing to historical content, primarily pre-revolutionary, meets the needs of the mythologized construct of "millennial historical Russia" ^[26], reflecting the policy of rejecting the positioning of the Russian political elite in the coordinates of the past. The narrative about the pre-revolutionary era of Russia has a non-systemic character, appears situationally in official political discourse and is extremely poorly operationalized to promote modern political ideas. The historical plot of the Troubles of the early 17th century turned out to be the most elaborated and reinterpreted for the political needs of the elite, but this discourse, due to its chronological remoteness, is extremely mythologized, vague, and abstract.

The past (Soviet and post-Soviet history). The Soviet period of Russian history is presented much more clearly in the official political discourse. The history of the USSR acts as a reference element that is used 1) to accentuate the problems of modern Russia, 2) to emphasize the achievements made in recent years ("even in Soviet times, with its broad social program of support for citizens, there was no such measure of support" ^[27] [on free meals for elementary school students – note I.N.]). The Soviet past is much more operationalized for the situational political needs of the official discourse of power. Let's analyze the main plots reflected in the texts of messages and congratulatory messages.

Undoubtedly, the Great Patriotic War has been a key place of memory since the early 2000s. Not a single message from the President to the Federal Assembly during the period under study was complete without mentioning the largest armed conflict in history. The 2015 and 2019 speeches dedicated to the New Year and National Unity Day also contain references to the history of the Great Patriotic War, despite the incompatibility of the content with the occasion.

The key aspects of the official discourse's attitude to the memory of the Great Patriotic War are two situationally combined elements:

1) recognition of the war as the greatest victory of the people ("Soviet", "Russian", "ours" — depending on the needs of the situational meaning of the event).

"Many states submitted to this brazen force, and impunity blinded the Nazis. They thought that they could also, in a matter of weeks, subjugate the Soviet Union, a thousand—year-old historical Russia. It didn't work out!" ^[28].

2) the acceptance of the war as a major catastrophe that claimed countless lives and the consequences of which affect the current state of the country.

"Millions of the fallen did not see, did not wait for Victory" ^[29].

The tasks of constructing the historical "alter ego" of modern Russia in the president's discourse are also realized through comparing the achievements of recent years with the results of Soviet rule. It is noteworthy that not the entire period of the socialist experiment is considered representative of the achievements of the current government. There are practically no positive connotations with the pre-war period of the history of the USSR, while the period of the 1960s – 1970s is present in official discourse as significant, as the highest level reached in previous historical eras. The areas of activity in which the modern government allows comparison with the Soviet past can be grouped into three main areas:

1) military technologies and countering a potential attack (arms limitation treaties, radar systems, various weapons technologies, etc.);

2) social policy (socially oriented professions, provision for pensioners and other social groups, national policy, etc.);

3) infrastructure policy (housing construction, number and capacity of ports, construction of social facilities, etc.)

4) economic indicators (macroeconomic indicators, agricultural product volumes, metallurgical industry volumes, etc.)

Table 1. Mention of the Soviet past in the discourse of the President's messages to the Federal Assembly 2012-2022.

The Soviet past, despite the abundance of positive connotations and comparisons, is a controversial object of retrospective reflection in the discourse of the Russian government (see Table 1). This trend corresponds to public perceptions of this historical period, measured in 2022 by VTSIOM sociological surveys. According to the results of these studies, 51% of the adult population of the country consider the Soviet period of Russia's history to be positive, 38% find in it an equal presence of both good and bad, and only 5% assess it unequivocally negatively ^[30]. It should be noted that this is the result of the idealization of the Soviet past observed in our country since the early 2000s, which forms the phenomenon of Soviet retrotopia ^[31]. The results of the surveys conducted at the beginning of the chronological period we are interested in take a more radical look at our country's Soviet past. In particular, with a close indicator for positive assessments, 54% of those who regret the collapse of the USSR, 33% of those who negatively assess and do not regret the termination of its existence in 2012. The inconsistency of the "Soviet" in the discourse of official power in Russia corresponds to the trend towards idealization, but it also reflects the critical demand of the public.

Statistically negative connotations of the Soviet past prevail in the discourse of the President's messages to the Federal Assembly, although they are not conceptually system-forming for the historical policy of the government. The Soviet period is considered as the source of a number of modern problems in Russia, in particular the demographic crisis. The failures of natural growth in the 1940s and 1990s are repeatedly mentioned in the texts of messages from different years as the beginning of the problems that the country faced in the 21st century. In addition to demographic problems, among the negatively assessed facts of the Soviet past, the president mentions the shortage of general consumer goods, the heavy legacy of single-industry towns, the infringement of private interests, the ideology of the advent of communism, etc.

Separately, it is worth mentioning a group of meanings related to the process of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which underlies the retrospective focus of historical politics. Despite the constant presence of comparisons between modern Russia and the Soviet Union, the two states are not considered as different objects, but are hypostases of the same historical entity. The 2018 message contains a formula characterizing this approach: "Russia, which in Soviet times was called the Soviet Union" ^[32]. However, there is no consistent historical continuity in the president's discourse, since the trajectory of the country's development from the USSR to modern Russia is interrupted by the period of the collapse of the first and the formation of the second. The latter is referred to in the 2019 message as "the dramatic years after the collapse of the USSR" ^[33]. In the context of Russia's geopolitical positions, the president notes: "We still have the same ambitions, (...) we still have a huge potential (...). But threats have also arisen, and threats of a scale that no one had even thought about before."^[34] It is pointed out that numerous "huge holes" ^[35] have appeared in the radar anti-missile field, which metaphorically reflects the state of the country as a whole. In 2018, Vladimir Putin summed up the quantitative results of the collapse of the Soviet Union: Russia "lost 23.8 percent of its territory, 48.5 percent of its population, 41 percent of its gross social product, 39.4 percent of its industrial potential (...), and 44.6 percent of its military potential due to the division of the USSR Armed Forces between the former Soviet republics" ^[36]. These data become an important argument in substantiating the position of the Russian government regarding the collapse of the USSR as the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.

One should align oneself with O. Y. Malinova's ideas expressed in relation to the president's discourse that for the political elite of modern Russia "the Soviet past was of interest to the extent that it could be used in collage techniques to illustrate the image of a "thousand-year-old" "strong state" acting as the core of the official version of modern Russian identity" ^{[37, p. 39]}. This statement was also confirmed in our study — the Soviet past is presented inconsistently, but semantically significant in the construct of historical politics.

Future. The formation of an image of the future is a key element of the ideological communication of state power and presupposes the fulfillment of one of the main functions of the political system — goal setting. "The future tense is being 'usurped' by the government to solve the problems of the present. By turning the interests of citizens into the future, the government expects to maintain its influence in the present" ^{[38, p. 253]}. In strategic documents, such as the President's messages to the Federal Assembly, we expect to see a statistical predominance of semantic references to the future over references to the past. However, it is necessary to take into account their qualitative differences: mentions of the future are practically unverifiable, formulated abstractly and immeasurably.

"We must aim only forward, only into the future" ^[39].

The image of the distant future is amorphous and illusory, and cannot be operationalized for the key task of the political elite in formulating clear goals for social development. The recipient of official discourse finds it difficult to build their own individual trajectory of activity in solidarity with the goals of society's development. The discourse sets mythologized ideas about the future — a strong, independent, united, etc. Russia, but it is impossible to identify the way to achieve this state and the planned period of its achievement in the president's texts. The abstract future, in an attempt to bridge this gap, is completed by planning for a short-term period of one or several years. "Talking about the future that is known to him, the speaker finds himself in a position of strength. He possesses knowledge that is inaccessible to his listeners" ^{[40, p. 166-167]}. By referring to "next year," "the coming years," and "the near future," the president is actually extending the activities already carried out by the government for a predictable period of existence of the current configuration of the political system. However, the request to construct a long-term strategic image of the future is not satisfied.

conclusion

Despite the dominance of the future tense in statistical calculations of verb forms and marker words, it should be recognized that in the semantic dimension, the future tense does not form the foundation of the discourse of power. Addressing the future is contested, abstract, and semantically vague. Only the immediate plans of the government differ in accuracy, which, in our opinion, are rather embedded in the "long" present, stretching from the previous measurable results of the government's activities to the plans for the coming years, which can be measured by the articles of the three-year state budget. The temporality of official political discourse in the chronological framework of the study is based on the present tense. The political reality is placed in a dynamic process of countless changes and transformations that have recently taken place and are planned to take place in the near future.

In comparison with the future, the past is semantically much more significant in the president's discourse, reflecting the specific configuration of historical politics in specific conditions. The semantic pressure of the past is in conflict with the statistical advantage of the future, which may indicate a special way of constructing explanatory models and goal-setting systems. The discourse starts from the past as a significant stage that requires measuring the present with oneself. Such logic certainly has the advantage of working out historical mistakes and traumas, but there is no alternative to depriving society of a tangible image of the future.

Throughout Vladimir Putin's presidency, attempts have been made to align historical memory with all the reference stages of our country's past. "The idea of the unity of history smoothly transforms into the unity of the Russian people within the framework of a single state" ^{[41, p. 138]}. However, according to the results of our analysis, the Soviet period of Russian history is the main reference period, which corresponds to numerous studies by Russian scientists. If we rank the degree of closeness of the president's ideas about the socio-political, cultural, geopolitical and economic state of modern Russia with different periods of our country's history, then the Soviet period (more precisely, the post—war Soviet period) should be placed in the first place. Further, the dynamics of increasing differences will be followed by the imperial period, which is a link with the "thousand-year history". The president's discourse distances itself even more clearly from the early years of modern Russia, the 1990s. Such an association system is integrated into the electoral landscape of a country where the most politically active part of the population is still the generation that found the late Soviet Union and/or those nostalgic for it; it allows updating the discourse of a great power, asserting historical continuity with the USSR.

Reflecting on the method developed to study the temporal characteristics of the official discourse of power, we can find the applied benefits of analyzing temporality at three levels: grammatical (tense forms of verbs), lexical (frequency of use of marker words) and semantic (meaningful content of images of the past and future). Significant limitations of the research results include the fact that the study of the tense grammatical forms of the verb is exclusively probing (30% of the text of each source has been processed). Among other things, the primary processing of such a unit of analysis as the temporal form of the verb is hampered by the genre specifics of the texts, in particular, the abundance of infinitives. The conclusions can be significantly improved by involving additional sources of official political discourse in the form of public speeches and addresses of the president, texts of other actors of state power. These factors do not allow us to confidently extrapolate the results of the study to the entire volume of the official discourse of the Russian government, however, in our opinion, they give us the right to judge the presence of trends and specific patterns in the use of the past and the future for political purposes.